old salt wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 10:12 pm
Typical Lax Dad wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 10:05 pm
old salt wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 9:05 pm
Typical Lax Dad wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 7:49 pm
old salt wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 6:48 pm
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 20, 2022 6:34 pm
old salt wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 10:26 pm
Typical Lax Dad wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 10:17 pm
RedFromMI wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 6:32 pm
dislaxxic wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 6:02 pm
Some of the video rasheed posted makes attempts at saying that NATO was a bad actor in this whole sordid affair.
Is that true? Did they somehow renege on written agreements> If so, can we look at the specifics?
Also, if so, did NATO expansionism to the borders of Russia JUSTIFY this invasion?
The comments by this MacGregor character are woven together with the words of Chomsky and other leftists in a way to make it seem like they are "of a mind"
ARE they? or is that just some selective editing of various comments to create a narrative?
rasheed?
..
As far as I can tell there is no written agreement for NATO to not expand. There were claims made years ago, and NATO/US spokespeople pushed back then.
So until someone actually shows such a written agreement, and proves it is not a forgery, I would say the historical record so far says this is not true.
But the Russians have been claiming it for quite some time, even though it appears they are lying.
And an Old Soviet also.
Show us where I said there was a written agreement.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book ... ders-early
https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/promi ... t-matters/
Rasheed did; that’s what started this discussion.
I know. TLD hasn't figured that out.
Old Soviet claimed NATO broke its agreement to not expand and Putin was justified in his invasion…..never said Old Soviet or anyone else said NATO broke a written agreement….and I said America breaks treaties all the time…why you calling out America for backing out on an “agreement” here? That was my point….grasshopper
I never said Putin was justified in the invasion. Show us my words saying that.
I explained what motivated Putin & why the Russian people & military supported him.
It's important to understand what motivates our adversaries. Pull your head out of ...the sand.
Many officials within the US govt warned about NATO's eastward expansion & warned that it could lead to a European war. It did.
You didn’t say he wasn’t justified. That’s good enough for me champ. You can say Putin wasn’t justified…. My thinking is clear. Your opinion is just as wrong as the next person’s old grasshopper.
Putin was not justified in the invasion. That goes without saying.
obtw -- nobody really thought he'd do it, ...until the blood stocks began showing up in the field hospitals.
wrong, US IC "thought he'd do it".
So did anyone listening closely to Putin.
We all hoped he might blink, but anyone clear-eyed understood the probabilities...just a matter of when.
Likewise, anyone who understood what Putin had been doing with asymmetric, mostly digital, activities to undermine democracies around the world, and who understood that what Putin was doing was weakening resistance to his direct actions to retake "Russian lands", and expand influence to the Mediterranean, by sowing division within democracies who might otherwise oppose these hegemonic ambitions.
Even guys like me knew...and were telling guys like you that this is what Putin was doing and could be anticipated to do more and more aggressively if not punished for it, stopped.
Appeasement with authoritarian aggressors never is the right policy.
But way too much of his propaganda undermining democracies and bolstering right wing "nationalist" ideologies, particularly "white Christian nationalist" ideologies was successful, seducing way too many into thinking Putin was somehow aligned with them or 'not that bad'...or 'not that dangerous'.
We should be rejecting those ideologies wholesale, and embracing multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-racial constitutional democracy wherever it can be fostered. Not all such will be as mature as our own after multiple centuries of evolution, but each should be encouraged to grow and flourish.
And most importantly, we need to be refreshing our own confidence in our own "multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-racial constitutional democracy". That requires work, not apathy or dismissal.